I have successfully used VMware Fusion 6 (and 7) on a recent Macbook Pro retina (MPBr). In another thread, I promised that I would document my setup and answer questions.
Overview
This works!
The biggest bottleneck is the lack of a "real" graphics card in my laptop. I did get access to an identical MBPr that had the discrete Nvidia 750M card and I also tested both cards with an external monitor (an HDTV at 1080p and 720p).
With only the integrated Intel card, RF7's "medium" graphics setting seems to be the best choice. I think it is very usable on the internal display. Running on an HDTV at 1080p and 720p got me a little less fan noise and a slightly less visual jitter that runninng on the internal display. I'm sure the experience will be similar for external monitors with similar resolution. With the Nvidia card, running at "high" seems to be the sweet spot or "medium" if you want less fan noise and smoother panning. In this config, external monitors with lower resolution that the internal display are still better, but the difference (in fan speed and jitter artifacts) isn't as big as with the Intel. With either card, 3D airfields with lots of objects close to the camera show jitter.
If you have Fusion and RF7 specific questions, please post below and I'll do my best to answer them. Don't post to tell me I should use bootcamp. I know I can. I know it would give me better graphics performance. I don't want to.
The details
Hardware/OS
- Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina with 2.6Ghz i7 CPU. It has only the integrated graphics card, the Intel Iris Pro. The operating system is OSX 10.9.x. For a virtual machine platform, I'm using Fusion 6.0.3. Internal display settings are set to "best for display" (this simulates 1440x900 on the 15" screen).
The virtual machine/software settings.
- 1 virtual core
- 4GB of RAM.
- 40GB of virtual disk.
- "Accelerate 3D graphics" turned on, "use full resolution for Retina" turned OFF.
- Windows 8.1 installed as the OS.
- VMware Tools installed in the Windows guest. You will not get DirectX working in the Windows guest unless you install VMware Tools.
- RF7 Interface Edition (but I'm 99.9% sure the other editions will work just fine too)
- RF7 graphics settings at "medium"
Various notes and tricks.
- Not counting the overhead imposed by Fusion, there are two major problems bottlenecks with running on the late 2013 retina MacBook Pros
* The internal LCD display contains a lot of pixels. No matter what, the graphics card has to drive those pixels. Running on lower resolution external displays (My TV will run at 1920x1080) helps.
* An Intel Iris Pro is not a high end 3D graphics card. It does ok at "medium" The optional discrete Nvidia card does better, but still struggles above "high".
- With the Intel card, I don't think running above "medium" is usable. If I turn off vertical sync, I get a littler higher than 60fps, but tearing is noticeable. With the Nvidia card, "medium" and "high" worked well, I consistently got frame rates from 100-280. But I find the tearing distracting so I like vertical sync on. The "highest" setting is very pretty when things aren't moving a lot, but I never saw it above about 50fps.
- With either card, a lower resolution external monitor helps. By "helps" I mean that the performance gets a bit better and the fans don't run as loud. It is still not what I would call "smooth" when panning, but I haven't ever seen RF7 on a real graphics card so maybe I am being picky. If you have a desktop Mac, follow the advice of the Windows folks. Buy the biggest, baddest graphics card that you can afford. Running in RF7 Fusion will still benefit from it.
- Some airfields are harder on the graphics subsystem than others. Unsurprisingly, photo fields work well with no matter what. Among the 3D fields, lots of object close to the camera creates lots of jitter and tearing. No matter what I did, the air race field with several 3D objects (the towers that mark the course) close to the camera always shows quite a bit of jitter when the camera is panning quickly.
- I run the VM full screen. I also run RF7 in full screen mode (alt-enter). When I am using the internal display, running it at at the recommended resolution (on the 15" MBPr this is simulates 1440x900) seemed to help.
- The CPU cores are barely taxed while running RF7, I bet slower and older CPUs worked just fine. I didn't detect a big difference between 1 or 2 virtual cores allocated to the virtual machine. With either the Nvidia or the Intel card, the laptop fans will kick on pretty quickly. Nice graphics require power, that power makes heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. I just turn up the volume and listen to the whine of the R/C model's motor
- The USB interface works fine. The one trick I use to make things easier is to plug in the USB cable AFTER the virtual machine is completely powered on or resumed. The first time you plug it in, you can choose to always connect it to the VM rather than asking each time. But, if you connect the cable before the VM is running, you Mac OS takes control. This isn't a big deal, but I find it easier to just plug it in after the VM is running. You can do this from a Fusion menu if your USB plug is hard to reach, but on my laptop it isn't.
- I allocated 4GB of RAM to the virtual machine, but that's because I sometimes do other things with the VM that want that much RAM, RF7 doesn't seem to need more than 1GB on it's own. So you could probably lower that.
- Hard disk. My laptop came with a fast SSD. That doesn't really matter to RF7. I allocated 40GB to my Win8 virtual machine, but RF7 doesn't need all that. As I said, I use this VM for other things.
Overview
This works!
The biggest bottleneck is the lack of a "real" graphics card in my laptop. I did get access to an identical MBPr that had the discrete Nvidia 750M card and I also tested both cards with an external monitor (an HDTV at 1080p and 720p).
With only the integrated Intel card, RF7's "medium" graphics setting seems to be the best choice. I think it is very usable on the internal display. Running on an HDTV at 1080p and 720p got me a little less fan noise and a slightly less visual jitter that runninng on the internal display. I'm sure the experience will be similar for external monitors with similar resolution. With the Nvidia card, running at "high" seems to be the sweet spot or "medium" if you want less fan noise and smoother panning. In this config, external monitors with lower resolution that the internal display are still better, but the difference (in fan speed and jitter artifacts) isn't as big as with the Intel. With either card, 3D airfields with lots of objects close to the camera show jitter.
If you have Fusion and RF7 specific questions, please post below and I'll do my best to answer them. Don't post to tell me I should use bootcamp. I know I can. I know it would give me better graphics performance. I don't want to.
The details
Hardware/OS
- Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina with 2.6Ghz i7 CPU. It has only the integrated graphics card, the Intel Iris Pro. The operating system is OSX 10.9.x. For a virtual machine platform, I'm using Fusion 6.0.3. Internal display settings are set to "best for display" (this simulates 1440x900 on the 15" screen).
The virtual machine/software settings.
- 1 virtual core
- 4GB of RAM.
- 40GB of virtual disk.
- "Accelerate 3D graphics" turned on, "use full resolution for Retina" turned OFF.
- Windows 8.1 installed as the OS.
- VMware Tools installed in the Windows guest. You will not get DirectX working in the Windows guest unless you install VMware Tools.
- RF7 Interface Edition (but I'm 99.9% sure the other editions will work just fine too)
- RF7 graphics settings at "medium"
Various notes and tricks.
- Not counting the overhead imposed by Fusion, there are two major problems bottlenecks with running on the late 2013 retina MacBook Pros
* The internal LCD display contains a lot of pixels. No matter what, the graphics card has to drive those pixels. Running on lower resolution external displays (My TV will run at 1920x1080) helps.
* An Intel Iris Pro is not a high end 3D graphics card. It does ok at "medium" The optional discrete Nvidia card does better, but still struggles above "high".
- With the Intel card, I don't think running above "medium" is usable. If I turn off vertical sync, I get a littler higher than 60fps, but tearing is noticeable. With the Nvidia card, "medium" and "high" worked well, I consistently got frame rates from 100-280. But I find the tearing distracting so I like vertical sync on. The "highest" setting is very pretty when things aren't moving a lot, but I never saw it above about 50fps.
- With either card, a lower resolution external monitor helps. By "helps" I mean that the performance gets a bit better and the fans don't run as loud. It is still not what I would call "smooth" when panning, but I haven't ever seen RF7 on a real graphics card so maybe I am being picky. If you have a desktop Mac, follow the advice of the Windows folks. Buy the biggest, baddest graphics card that you can afford. Running in RF7 Fusion will still benefit from it.
- Some airfields are harder on the graphics subsystem than others. Unsurprisingly, photo fields work well with no matter what. Among the 3D fields, lots of object close to the camera creates lots of jitter and tearing. No matter what I did, the air race field with several 3D objects (the towers that mark the course) close to the camera always shows quite a bit of jitter when the camera is panning quickly.
- I run the VM full screen. I also run RF7 in full screen mode (alt-enter). When I am using the internal display, running it at at the recommended resolution (on the 15" MBPr this is simulates 1440x900) seemed to help.
- The CPU cores are barely taxed while running RF7, I bet slower and older CPUs worked just fine. I didn't detect a big difference between 1 or 2 virtual cores allocated to the virtual machine. With either the Nvidia or the Intel card, the laptop fans will kick on pretty quickly. Nice graphics require power, that power makes heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. I just turn up the volume and listen to the whine of the R/C model's motor
- The USB interface works fine. The one trick I use to make things easier is to plug in the USB cable AFTER the virtual machine is completely powered on or resumed. The first time you plug it in, you can choose to always connect it to the VM rather than asking each time. But, if you connect the cable before the VM is running, you Mac OS takes control. This isn't a big deal, but I find it easier to just plug it in after the VM is running. You can do this from a Fusion menu if your USB plug is hard to reach, but on my laptop it isn't.
- I allocated 4GB of RAM to the virtual machine, but that's because I sometimes do other things with the VM that want that much RAM, RF7 doesn't seem to need more than 1GB on it's own. So you could probably lower that.
- Hard disk. My laptop came with a fast SSD. That doesn't really matter to RF7. I allocated 40GB to my Win8 virtual machine, but RF7 doesn't need all that. As I said, I use this VM for other things.
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